Determined to enhance my culture quotient, I recently watched Pollock on cable for about the hundredth time. Once again, I tried to figure out why the movie mesmerizes me. Surely it couldn’t be just the drip of the paint or the whine of Marcia Gay Harden. No, it had to be something else, some elusive element about Ed Harris in the title role.

And then I realized. It was the hair. Or rather, the lack of it. As balletic as Harris was flicking his oils, his performance was superbly heightened by his polished skull. That intensely focused, well-rounded expanse perfectly capped a singular artist. Constantly bent forward, it loomed ever present, signifying the fervid thoughts that kept spilling onto the canvas, literally bringing Harris’s performance to a head. No wonder the man got an Oscar nomination.